Stargate SG-1 DVD Questions (1 Viewer)

[Scott-S]

I know I am late to the game, but I think I have decided to experience the Stargate SG-1 world for the first time (I diid watch the movie).

I went to Amazon to check out how much this would set me back and left with more questions than answers.

I would like the entire set (10 seasons) in anamorphic widescreen. I only saw the set in full screen. Is this correct?

The only widescreen versions I saw were the "thinpacks" and are nearly $40 fer each season.

The other thing is I saw a lot of reviews about how bad the packaging was for the entire set. Has this issue been fixed?

Last question.... Is it worth my time and money to watch this series? 10 seasons is a big commitment.

 

[Joseph Bolus]

Here are a few answers:

1. All of the thin-pack season sets provide a 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen presentation. Except for the first season, the audio is DD 5.1. (The first season provides a strong DD 2.0 surround track.) The quality of the video is "average" for the first season (lots of grain in the presentation); rises to "good" for seasons 2-4; and is "excellent" for seasons 5-10.

2. If you hurry, you can get these season sets for $19.95/season at Costco. Some of the B&M retailers had these same prices on the season sets last week in conjunction with the Continuum movie release; but those sales are over now.

3. If you liked the movie you'll love Seasons 1-8 of the series since it picks up right where the movie left off. Many fans consider the last four episodes of Season 8 as the end of the series. (The DVDs provide expanded versions of two of these final episodes.)

4. Seasons 9-10 go in a different direction but the series remains above average in entertainment value. The DVD presentations of these seasons are outstanding.

 

[Scott-S]

Thanks for the reply. I'll check out Costco this weekend.

 

[Arild]

Nope. I have the "complete set" and it is anamorphic 16:9. As are all SG-1 DVD releases, ever.

 

[Todd Erwin]

The episode discs in the "complete" box set are identical to the individual season sets. The only extra is a bonus disc available exclusively with the "complete" box set that contains the Sci-Fi Channel behind the scenes specials. This has upset many of the series fans, because many of us, myself included, purchased the individual seasons as they were released, and FOX/MGM has refused to offer this disc without purchasing the series all over again. This has become a growing, and controversial, trend in the TV on DVD genre. If we don't keep buying the individual seasons of a show, the studio will simply stop releasing additional seasons. Then, once the series has run its course, a "complete series" set gets released, often with additional bonus content not previously available in the individual season sets. MGM did this with Stargate: SG-1, and Paramount did this with McGyver (releasing the 2 TV-movies in the complete series set only).

As far as I know, the packaging for the complete set has not been fixed. My seasons 1-8 were packaged in 5 full-size keepcases per season, causing me to create my own keepcase inserts and place the discs in a 6-disc keepcase per season to save on shelf space. If you purchase the complete box, you will likely need to do the same. I got the 6-disc cases at Fry's.

 

[Scott-S]

Arild;

Not all of them are 16x9 acording to Amazon.
This link to the complete set says it is Full Screen and one of the review warns that it is not widescreen.
SG1 on Amazon

I am also worried that most of the review talk about how bad the packaging is and how a lot of discs are bad. If this hasn't been fixed, it is a definite no sale for me.

 

[Joseph Bolus]

Again,

All of the "Slimpack" sets are 16:9 anamorphic. And I haven't had *any* problems with the packaging:

[url=https://static.hometheaterforum.com/imgrepo/5/5c/htf_imgcache_33545.jpeg] [/url]

Each Season Box Slimpack contains five DVDs packed into three slipout compact DVD boxes.

While supplies last, they're $19.95/season at Costco.

 

[Arild]

Amazon is wrong and the reviewer is clueless. I have this exact box set and every episode is 16x9. The discs are exactly the same as in the individual season box sets (of which I also own several). 4x3 formatted DVDs of Stargate SG-1 have never been released.

 

[John Stuart]

The first seasons of Stargate SG-1 were good; after Season 3 when the co-creator of the show Jonathan Glassner left and took the most of the writing talent with him, the show became CRAP. Brad Wright (co-creator) and Robert C. Cooper were left in charge, and while proving themselves as capable writers in the previous seasons, didn't have any FRACKING idea at all how to run a show.

They hired writers Joseph Malozzi and Paul Mullie that have absolutely no FRACKING idea what the hell they were doing. If you look at their records (IMDB), they have absolutely no relevant writing experience. In any one episode written by those two you can find more plot holes than the number of Go'aulds they killed off so far. No personal attack against the writer's intended, however, only against their WRITING SKILLS, which they have none of.

Other writers, although displaying slightly more skill, are LAZY ASSES who don't even try except at the season finales/openers, which are only shadows of what season finales were in seasons 1-3.

Stargate SG-1 turned into a rehash of old stuff, which they did over and over, because it only survived on the cool stuff that came before. That's because the new stuff they come up with was SHIT in comparison.

The dumbasses at MGM (who turned down Star Trek, btw) keeped this shit going because they wanted their own franchise to kick Trek's ass ... but that didn't happened because they keep producing CRAP. Stargate Atlantis is what happens when you make a spinoff of CRAP, with the same writers. It just does not work.

Enough fracking torture already, get capable people to take over the Stargate franchise because it is too fracking cool to be left in charge of these morons.

 

[Simon Massey]

i always felt Season 1 was awful. Apart from the pilot and a few episodes towards the end of the season most of it is dire.
Definitely picks up in Season 2 though

 

[Joseph Bolus]

For the record, my only exposure to the Stargate SG-1 franchise was via the DVDs. I missed the whole thing when it was originally aired on Showtime and SCI-FI.

Viewing them in this fashion, I didn't notice a huge drop-off in the quality of the scripts after Season Three. Like most episodic TV, there were some "dud" eps in Seasons 4-8; but in my opinion even the worse of them were still above average in entertainment value. (If you want to experience a show that really "rides the pendulum" between good and bad shows, then that would be seasons 1-6 of Star Trek: Voyager.) The best shows, of course, were wrapped around the mid-season and season finale's. Those were almost always "close to four star" episodes. But there were still a lot of solid three star eps sprinkled between those shows in seasons 4-8. And there was, perhaps, only one show that dipped below a two star. As i said, "above average" entertainment value. (All, IMHO, of course!

)

 

[Arild]

Because there wasn't one (not after season three, anyway), except in the minds of certain "fan factions" who, following some odd logic, push their agenda by "criticizing" (if you can call the shit-slinging demonstrated by the poster above "criticism") the show at any and all opportunity. It's been going on for years, and it's why I don't get involved much in Stargate fandom despite being a big fan. I just don't feel like having a bunch of whiners sabotage my enjoyment of the series. Fan politics.... blehhh.

 

[John Stuart]

If one made their bases on saying that more seasons means it's better, then you might as well say American Idol is superior. All it means is more braindead people are willing to watch it or it has better sponsers. TV shows like Deep Space Nine, Babylon 5 or Farscape have way better characters and development and great continuing storyline.

Stargate SG-1 has tons of stand alones and filler episodes with no character development... the characters acts the same from season 1 to 10.

I liked SG-1 but it should have ended much sooner than it did. Season 6 or 7 I'd say. One of the producers, when asked about the possibility of more SG-1 DVDs, said, "you keep buying them and we'll keep making them." That's the reality of it.

They made SG-1 because SG-1 made MONEY. Other shows like Farscape didn't. Quality didn't come into it. There are many elements of SG-1 that were atrocious - it was sci-fi lite and they very quickly descended into self-parody and the classic mistakes of humanising all the aliens and making everything more convoluted. It was never highbrow stuff, it was just relatively light, above average television with some great ideas behind it.

The problem is size and backing of studio and production company. Stargate turns out to be a lame crappy franchise but was backed by MGM. Star Trek it sunk but it is still one of the flagships of Paramount. Star Wars turned into a children's drek but it has backing of Lucas Films. Firefly was OK but when Fox cancelled it , Universal had no option but to stop the production but at least they did Serenity as finale.

These are production giants. They intend to milk cash from fanboys of these franchises until they die from old age no matter how awful they become in writing , acting and production values because they can not come up with something new.

At the other hand a show like Farscape for example was produced by Henson Co. , a medium sized production company and no matter how creative and inventive they are , they remain a small company (that's why they were so good in fact. They do not bother with lowest common demeanor to increase their profits etc ) compared to other studios I mentioned above.

 

[Arild]

Aaaaand.... there it is. Thank you, and good night.

EDIT: Okay, that's unfair. But so is your ridiculous claim that Farscape was a better show because the producers didn't care about earning a profit (WTF?? Of course they did!). But hey, maybe I'm just incapable of understanding. After all, I'm dumb enough to enjoy Stargate.

 

[troy evans]

Scott, I bought all the sd dvd seasons of Stargate as they were released and I am currently doing the same with SG:Atlantis. I also purchased the deluxe SG1 complete series set. The complete series set is awesome! For me all the bonus content and the cool packaging were worth it. I also had the added bonus of getting the uncut episode of Threads which I missed out on since it wasn't released until the second wave sets of season 8. Or you had to do a disc exchange through MGM. Now, you can buy all the slim sets individually and spend $200. Or you can go to amazon.com and look for the various retailers who sell the complete series set starting at $148 new. Remember the slim sets won't get you the extra bonus discs and such so it's like you would be spending more for less. My complete series set didn't have the problems most are claiming. There were some very light surface scratches on a few discs because of how this set is packged, which is basically cardboard sleeves. If you need to know any detailed things about the set let me know.

 

[Scott-S]

Thanks Troy. I think I am going to rent the first few discs of season 1 on netflix before I commit. I know that if I decide to buy these, I will want the entire set, so before I spend that much money, I want to be sure.

 

[Arild]

In that case, you should know that the first season - the first few episodes especially - are in no way representative of the quality of the rest of the series.

 

[Joseph Bolus]

I'll second that --- And you may want to skip the third episode ("Emancipation") altogether. It's quite possibly the worse episode of the entire series.

I would watch "Children of the Gods" --- The "Four Star" pilot episode
- then -
"The Enemy Within" -- This is just a two star ep, but it's necessary viewing in order to get familiar with how the "Snakes" work --
- and then jump ahead to -
"The Nox" (The seventh episode).
After "The Nox" the series starts to find its direction.

Please remember that the DVD video and audio also greatly improves after Season 1.

 

[troy evans]

I'll third this. The first season has good episodes, but, the one that got me was the finale. When that originally aired it was, without a doubt, a Wow moment. After that the gloves were off and they seemed to want to keep topping themselves. Which was on display throughout the second season. Buy the third season greatness was expected and they delivered from then on season after season. Sure you have a handful of non effects laden episodes and believe it or not some of them are considered the best of the best as far as stories and character developement arcs. Alot of shows are called great, this one truely is.

 

[MarkHarrison]

Absolutely true. We picked up season 1 of SG-1 on 7/24/2006. Not sure when we started watching, but we finished exactly a year ago today. So it took us over a year to get through the first season. We would have quit had we not heard such great things about it. Plus we watched the last 3-4 episodes in about two nights, so the rest went really slowly.

In comparison, it took us exactly 1 year to watch the other 9 seasons, plus all 4 seasons of Stargate Atlantis. For my wife, that's moving at an incredible pace. Roughly 13x faster than season 1.

So don't judge the show based off the first handful of episodes.